Politics & Policy

The Natural Resources Defense Council today urged Congress to investigate why the Department of Energy (DOE) still has not distributed as much as $600 million in congressionally approved clean energy research and development funding more than two months after the end of Fiscal Year 2018.

Citing the findings in a new NRDC analysis, NRDC Managing Director of Government Affairs Ana Unruh Cohen described the delays as “uncharacteristic and concerning” in her letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees on Energy and Water.

“The consequences of the funds remaining unspent with no apparent plan for utilization is not only an insult to congressional direction but undermines U.S. businesses and entrepreneurs in developing the next generation of clean energy technologies,” she said.

DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) office – which the Trump administration tried twice to eliminate – has not spent more than 79% of its $353 million FY18 research budget ($280 million); and

A blog with more details has been posted here by the authors of the analysis, Medhur Baloor, a Schneider Fellow with NRDC’s Climate and Clean Energy Program analysis team, and Jackie Wong, Climate and Clean Energy Program federal policy group deputy director.